Episode 201: Impressions from the 2011 PMI Global Congress (Free)

At the end of October I attended the PMI Global Congress in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas. Two weeks later I attended the PMO Symposium in Orlando Florida. As always I meet a lot of interesting people at these events, which is a great opportunity for me to sit down with them and bring you their thoughts, concerns, ideas and insights.

So over the coming weeks we are going to delve into 10 interviews that were recorded at these two events and we begin with a discussion I had with two representatives from the PMI Guadalajara Chapter from Mexico.

My guests Felipe Nunez and Edgar Polanco are attending the congress mainly to participate in the PMI Leadership Meeting, which usually precedes the congress. In this meeting leaders and board members from PMI Chapters get together to learn from each others experience of leading a volunteer project management organization.

We discuss their impressions of the Leadership Meeting, the Global Congress and how they will be setting up their own, local congress in Guadalajara in 2012.

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #201. This is The Project Management Podcast™ at www.pm-podcast.com and I am Cornelius Fichtner. Nice to have you with us.

At the end of October, I attended the PMI Global Congress in Dallas Fort Worth in Texas. And two weeks later, I attended the PMO Symposium in Orlando, Florida. As always, I meet a lot of interesting people at these events which is a great opportunity for me to sit down with them and bring you their thoughts, concerns, ideas and insights.

So over the coming weeks, we are going to delve into 10 interviews that I recorded at these two events and we begin with a discussion I had with two representatives from the PMI Guadalajara Chapter from Mexico.

This episode of The Project Management Podcast™ is sponsored by The PDU Podcast™, our sister podcast which is a great way and convenient way for you to earn unlimited PDUs if you’re a PMP. Get project management webinars delivered to your portable player like an iPod, Blackberry and android phone and earn at least 1 PDU every month. With The PDU Podcast™, there is no need to go to a classroom. You don't even have to sit at your computer. Instead, enjoy the freedom of earning your PDUs anywhere. Download the webinars to your player and play them wherever and whenever you want, for instance on your way to work. Your PDU Podcast™ puts you on autopilot for your re-certification. Visit www.pducast.com. That's p-d-u-c-a-s-t.com

My guests are Felipe Nuñez and Edgar Polanco. They are attending the congress mainly to participate in the PMI Leadership Meeting. This leadership meeting usually precedes the official global congress. And in this meeting, leaders and board members from PMI Chapters all around North America, they get together to learn from each other’s experience of leading a volunteer project management organization. I personally attended many of these and they were always helpful for me as a board member.

So right now, we are going to discuss Felipe and Edgar’s impression of the leadership meeting, the Global Congress and how they will themselves be setting up their own local congress in Guadalajara next year.

And now, please put on your PMI thinking cap and enjoy the interview.

Podcast Interview

Cornelius Fichtner: I am sitting here in the beautiful Gaylord Texan Hotel and Resort recording this interview for the second time because we just noticed that I forgot to push the record button the first time. So I’m still sitting here with Edgar Polanco and Felipe Nuñez who are here from the PMI Guadalajara Chapter. Hello Felipe!

Felipe Nuñez: Hello, how are you?

Cornelius Fichtner: And hello, Edgar.

Edgar Polanco: Hello Cornelius!

Cornelius Fichtner: So very sorry about having to do this interview for a second time because I cannot push the buttons on my recorder here. Let’s start out with the same questions I asked you about 10 minutes ago, Edgar. On your business card and I’ve never seen this. It says, Director of International Affairs. I’ve been with PMI for about 7 or 8 years. I’ve never seen somebody from a local chapter who has this title. What does a director of internal affairs do for his or her local PMI chapter?

Edgar Polanco: Okay. Well, my role in the chapter is to be the focal point for foreign chapters especially well, international, and to be the focal point with the Global PMI. What I intend to do is to try to get some agreements with those chapters especially from US, from North America, from Europe, from Latin America, from Asia and maybe share some activities.

We were just talking about maybe trying to share webinars or trying to get more value to our members including more events from other chapters via web or maybe sharing later speakers or congresses. With global PMI, I am intending to get more support from them or to get more in communication with the Global PMI.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right! So you manage all the collaborations that your chapter would like to have internationally then, right?

Edgar Polanco: Yeah, exactly.

Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So did you set anything up? Did anything come out of the meeting so far? Are you happy with the results?

Edgar Polanco: Yeah! I’m pretty happy with the results so far. We got some communication. Well, I get some connection with several people here. Some of them were from Israel, from Kuwait, from Peru, from Latin America and then from US also and Canada. And it was really, really great. We’ll see what happens later.

Cornelius Fichtner: Perfect! Felipe, you’ve been here also at the leadership meeting, what have you liked best from all the sessions that you have attended?

Felipe Nuñez: I think what I enjoyed the best is the opportunity to look for different aspect s of involvement that PMI has seen in the chapters, how we interact with people. During the meetings that we attended, we could learn about individual development about chapter opportunities, about communities of practice. So it’s a very good experience in order to have a better support bearing information and improve the way that we manage the chapter in the country.

The conference that I liked the most is the one that was related to visualization because it helps us to visualize where we want to be, what we want to do and from that start defining what are the steps that are required in order to accomplish that goals.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right! And for those among our listeners who don’t know what the leadership institute meeting is that PMI sets up there. They usually have a 2-week event going on. It starts out with the LIM and goes into the Global Congress and then moves into seminars world. And the LIM, that’s the meeting where PMI invites all the leaders from local chapters so presidents, vice presidents, everybody really who is on the board of directors will have a chance. So everybody who is an officer of the chapter, the local chapters, has a chance to come here and learn more about leadership in regards to project management as well as leading a PMI Chapter.

Back to you Edgar, what was it that you liked best?

Edgar Polanco: Well, I would say that the one liked the most is one call it the art of stakeholder management. It was really interesting. We had a lot of discussion over there, a lot of online surveys, no dead moment and we get really, really interesting conclusions over there.

And the second one was probably about social media and how the social media now is helping to getting in contact with more people to share ideas very quickly. Well, it’s really, really interesting.

Cornelius Fichtner: Excellent! In that case, I have to invite you to my presentation tomorrow in the afternoon because I’ll be talking about social media. Yeah! You’ll definitely enjoy that. You’ll definitely enjoy that.

So this was a quick review, your opinion you have used here on the Lim and your experience. But what we really want to talk about is the fact that next year, you are going to have a local LIM in your chapter as well as a congress. And Felipe, you said you are tired now because you have just attended a congress back home. Now, you are coming to this congress. Now, you have to go back home to set up the congress for next year, right?

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Please subscribe to our Premium Podcast to receive a PDF transcript.

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